The Drums Rise
by Sashet
Summary: In the 'year that never was' the Master continues to humilate and abuse the Doctor for his own ends.  ****Doctor/Master SLASH warning!


A/N: This is a sort of sequel to 'Sometimes Winning Is Just Surviving' but I also think it stands alone as well so even if you haven't read the other one – dive on in and enjoy yourself!

In the 'Year That Never Was' the Master continues to humiliate and abuse the Doctor for his own ends.

***Doctor / Master SLASH***

Huge thanks to Dr. D for sticking with me and doing a fabulous Beta on this as it slowly progressed!

Obviously...I don't own Doctor Who ...it belongs to people far smarter than I am!

The Drums Rise

"_But don't think this is the end because for every day you continue to defy me, for every day you dare to believe in Martha Jones and your stupid, ill-conceived plan to do whatever it is you think will stop me__, I will consider it an act of treason against me and I will punish it… I will punish you."_

The Doctor woke suddenly and unexpectedly as the rising sound of drums in his mind forced their way through to his consciousness. Gasping for breath as his body protested to the unwanted intrusion in his mind it took him several moments to calm himself enough to realize that he was no longer chained up in the TARDIS.

Briefly he wondered if the memories he had of that time were just that…memories… but as he reached up to run a hand through his hair it brushed against the soft fabric of the Master's tie around his throat and he knew that they weren't. The Master had murdered an innocent man, tortured the Doctor and then brutally raped him and all with the promise of more to come.

The repercussions of what he had done to his body to prevent him reacting to the touch of another Time Lord left him nauseous, a thin film of sweat forming along his hairline as he fought back the tremors in his limbs, caused by the rush of chemicals that flooded his body. Long hard minutes passed before he was eventually able to rise to a sitting position without any further adverse effects

He was in a small windowless room with no facilities and still the age that he had been when the Master had raped him. The Doctor was strangely grateful to his captor for not having aged him again; it was a particularly painful experience and not one that the Doctor had any desire to undergo again. Of course, he was also still naked apart from the unwanted black silk tie which, despite the Master's threats, he hurriedly discarded.

The Master had promised or maybe threatened him with more of what he had endured in the console room of his bastardized TARDIS if he continued to defy him, but despite the fact that those threats filled the Doctor with a dread he hadn't felt for many years, he knew he had no choice. He had asked Martha to help him save the Earth from the Master and he knew that he had to give her all the time he could to do so, no matter what the cost to him might be.

He would wait and he would endure.

The Doctor's wait lasted several days, during which time he was visited only by brutish guards who left him with meager amounts of food and water and copious amounts of unimaginative insults and threats. He used the time to continue his assault on the Master's Archangel Network, threading his power into the psychic network. It was a long and tiring process and the Doctor made the most of his enforced solitude. Once the Master came for him again there would be no time and no opportunity for him to do anything other than try to survive.

The door to the Doctor's cell swung open and he looked up to see the Master, flanked by guards, filling the frame.

"Doctor, it's been a while. You know how it is…things to do, people to kill, that sort of thing."

"Not going quite to plan then?"

The Master took a moment before he answered, "I wouldn't say that…exactly."

"You should have known that the population of the Earth wouldn't just let you terrorize them into accepting you as their Lord and Master."

"They do….they will," he said in a voice that sounded to the Doctor as much as if he was trying to convince himself as anything. "But enough of the citizens of this tiresome little rock, I've been neglecting my guest of honor."

The Master swept the naked form of the Doctor with a predatory eye, his delight at what he saw demonstrated only by the slight flick of his tongue over his lips. In an instant his demeanor changed when he saw his tie on the floor beside the Doctor.

His face hardened and without words he signaled to the guards that accompanied him. They surged into the small room and without much care hauled the Doctor to his feet and dragged him away.

In the now empty room the Master squatted beside the tie, letting the soft silk trail through his fingers. "Stubborn bastard," he said as he picked up the tie. "Not that I would have expected anything else from you Doctor, you always were a fool."

By the time the Master caught up with the Doctor he was chained spread eagled by his wrists to heavy metal supports in the wall of a large room deep in the bowels of the Valiant. Dark patches on his face and body showed where bruises were starting to form and he was bleeding from both his nose and his lip.

The Master, having had enough time to allow his rage to build at having his orders ignored, strode up to the Doctor snarling as he brandished the tie in the face of his helpless captive.

"What did I tell you about this?" he asked rhetorically as he backhanded the Doctor, the ring on his hand gashing the Doctor's face below his right eye. The Doctor didn't give the Master the satisfaction of any sound at all, just returning his glare with one of equal defiance.

"I THINK I told you I didn't want to see you without it," another blow, this time to the Doctor's unprotected midriff, left him gasping for breath.

"And what do I find?" another vicious blow that would have sent the Doctor to his knees had he not been cruelly held in place with tight metal cuffs that dug into his wrists. "At the first chance you get you choose to defy me…ME!"

The Doctor scrunched his eyes shut against the sudden but not unexpected wave of violence that the Master unleashed against him. Punches and kicks rained down on his helpless form, leaving him bloody and breathless in their wake. He hadn't made a sound during the whole attack, not even when a well placed kick had caught him directly in the groin.

Now as the assault stopped and the pain subsided to a barely manageable level he opened his eyes to see the Master's face inches from his own, his eyes ablaze with his madness. He could feel the hot breath of his exertion on his face and could hear the sound of drums inside his own mind.

"Let me help you," he told him before the drums in his own head could take hold.

For just the briefest moment of time he thought he saw the 'old' Master return, the one he had known when they were both children in the Academy of Gallifrey. Then that person was gone, replaced by a man he didn't know.

"What makes you think I need or want your help?" he asked, grasping the Doctor's hair in his hand and pulling his head painfully back, exposing his throat. "I don't. I never have. I never will. That is a lesson that you still have to learn Doctor."

Releasing his hold on the Doctor's hair he stepped back, reached for his laser screwdriver and with just the faintest glimmer of a smile, blasted the bloodied and beaten Doctor into unconsciousness.

The Doctor groaned as yet again he fought his way back to consciousness. His body ached from his earlier beating and in the back of his mind he could still hear the quiet but steady beat of the drums.

"Doc?" asked a familiar American voice.

The Doctor opened his eyes to find that he was no longer alone. Opposite him, chained in the same way as he was, dirty, bruised and bloody was Captain Jack Harkness.

"Jack?" he asked unnecessarily.

"The one and only."

"What… how….I mean…sorry…sorry… are you ok?"

"I should be asking you that, don't take this the wrong way but you don't look too hot."

"Well, no, I'm fine..," he saw Jack's quizzical look. "Really Jack I'm fine. Honestly." He knew that Jack knew he was lying and decided a change of tack was in order. "Have you seen Martha's family, are they alright, has he hurt them?"

"Hey Doc, slow down, one thing at a time."

"Yes, sorry, it's just that I don't think we have much time. The fact that you are here isn't good news...for either of us."

"Well, I'd kinda worked that much out for myself, what do you think that psycho has planned?"

"That 'psycho', as you so quaintly put it, has SO many things planned for the two of you that you couldn't begin to imagine."

The two men's heads spun simultaneously towards the door at the sound of the Master's voice.

The Doctor flashed a quick glance at Jack whose face was full of fury and his body tense with expectation; it wasn't difficult to see that he had already suffered long and hard at the hands of the Master.

"Jack," he laced his low voice with urgency, he would only get one chance to try and stop the ex-Time Agent from doing or saying something reckless. "Jack," he had his attention now. "It's all about Martha, remember that."

"Enough!" The Master now commanded the centre of the room. "I will have no more talk of THAT woman."

"She's still alive then, still out there, still a thorn in your side," Jack goaded. "Good for you Martha Jones."

The Master unleashed a vicious punch to Jack's jaw that rocked his head and left him with a split lip. Spitting blood at the Master's feet Jack was unrepentant. "You hit like a girl."

The Master bristled but didn't rise to the insult, he would make them pay for it later, after all he had plans to make them both suffer…a lot….before he was done.

"To business I think," he said turning melodramatically on the spot, one finger against his lips as if deep in thought. "Now which one of you will be first?" Spinning, he pointed first at one of them and then the other. "Eeny, meeny, miny…..MO!" he landed up pointing at Jack. "Oh goody, The Freak," he turned back to the Doctor. "Again," he added with a grin that turned the Doctor's blood cold. "I told you what I'd do if you continued to defy me."

"You don't have to do this," the Doctor argued knowing that he was wasting his breath.

"Oh, but Doctor I do...I really do."

"Don't worry Doc, it's not like we haven't been here before and he can't kill me ...right?" He gave the Doctor a wry knowing smile.

"But Jack."

"But nothing! Whatever he does it doesn't matter…right…it _doesn't_ matter."

"Will you two just SHUT UP!" the Master yelled. "In fact….," he fished into his pocket and pulled out the by now crumpled tie. Swiftly he fashioned it into a makeshift gag and secured it tightly around the Doctor's mouth. "That's better, one less distraction."

He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it to a waiting guard, took a gleaming knife from him and dismissed him with a curt wave of his hand. Jack tensed where he stood, bracing himself for what was to come. It wasn't the first time the Master had used a knife on him and he could remember clearly just how much it had hurt.

"When you scream, I might stop," the Master told him as he scored a line down the exposed underside of Jack's arm.

"Going to be a long day then," Jack retorted.

"I hope so."

Another gash down the other arm had Jack grimacing as he felt the warm trickle of his blood down his arms.

The Doctor could only watch helplessly as the Master cut again and again into Jack's body, turning it into a patchwork of long angry red marks. He strained futilely against his own restraints as the Master carved the ancient Gallifreyan symbol for the Prydonian Chapter into Jack's chest – knowing it was meant as a message for him.

Jack struggled against the growing agonies that flooded his body. He had played this game before and no matter if he screamed until he was hoarse or stayed silent throughout it always ended the same way…. with his death, albeit a temporary one.

He saw the horror in the Doctor's face as he was slowly and painfully carved to death and knew that this time he had to stay silent. If he screamed the Master might turn his attention to the Doctor and he couldn't let that happen. He couldn't die and, although he knew the Doctor had a way to cheat death, he couldn't let him regenerate. This world needed this Doctor to save them and if that meant Jack had to die a million times over he was willing to do so.

The Doctor's shouts of protest and pleas were muffled by his gag and he hardly felt the pain of the metal cuffs cutting into his own flesh until his wrists bled as he was forced to watch Jack being tortured in front of him. He could feel the power, the evil, of the Master in his mind, in the place where the presence of his people used to be and fought to hold it back from overtaking him in his despair. The drums in the back of his mind were growing in strength, taunting him, tempting him with the power to stop what was being done to Jack. He couldn't heed them….although he wanted to, he wanted to stop Jack's suffering but he couldn't because in that way lay madness and a tie to the Master that once invoked could never be broken.

Jack only gave the faintest groan when the knife penetrated his chest for the final time and he began to die. He was perversely proud of the fact that he hadn't let the Doctor down by making a sound throughout the hours of torture he had endured. Looking across at where the Doctor stood, straining against his own bonds, a vein in his forehead pulsing with his frustration and his eyes filled with unshed tears he found the strength for what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Love you Doc," he mouthed although he knew nobody would hear him as his body finally called time on the pain and he breathed his last.

The Doctor screamed a virtually soundlessly plea for the Master to stop as Jack died in front of him. Although his death wasn't permanent he recognized the sacrifice that Jack had just made for him and wondered how many other deaths he'd suffered during the months they had been on the Valiant. It wasn't something that he wanted to have to watch Jack endure again.

"Why Doctor, you seem a little upset, maybe next time you'd like to take The Freak's place, it's been far too long since I've had a taste of pure Gallifreyan blood. Sorry what's that? You'll have to speak a little clearer Doctor," he taunted as the Doctor's replies came out as nothing more than muffled squeaks.

Theatrically the Master pulled the bloodied knife from Jack's chest and wiped the blade clean against the Doctor's pale chest. Tossing a last look at the dead man slumped against his restraints he told the man who was once his oldest friend, "You and I, Doctor, we aren't done yet, in fact I'd go so far as to say that we haven't even really got started." With a malicious grin he kissed the Doctor on the cheek and left.

Even when the Doctor tried to shut out the sight of the dead man in front of him he could still see the horrors that the Master had inflicted on his friend playing out inside his mind. They were not thoughts he wished to dwell upon especially as with every remembered action of the Master the drums inside his mind seemed to beat a little louder and stronger. He couldn't let them take a hold, he wouldn't let them, no matter what it took, for Jack and for Martha and for everything he had asked her to do he would fight the drums. He wished there was more he could do to help Jack than to be there for him when he woke up.

Several hours' later life rushed back to Jack Harkness with an almighty groan and a not insignificant surge of pain. "Damn…," he cursed quietly. "Forgot just how much that hurts!" Gasping against the pain, which he knew would be unpleasant but short lived, Jack saw the Doctor watching him, his brown eyes full of concern and the questions he couldn't voice.

"Hey you," he said not quite hiding the last traces of pain in his voice. "Good to see you again. I'm fine, you can't keep an old dog down Doc, you should know that. I'll tell you one thing though and this is a promise, when this is over I'm gonna kill that man myself and I'm going to enjoy every second of it."

The Doctor looked disapprovingly at Jack although he could understand why he felt like he did. "But first we need to get out of here before 'he'," he practically spat out the word, "gets back." Looking around the empty, windowless room yielded no obvious methods for them to get free. "Any suggestions on that one Doc, after all you're the brains here?"

Even if the Doctor had seen anything to help the two of them he couldn't articulate it to Jack, this was one problem he was going to have to work out for himself.

"You know something Doctor?" Jack asked somewhat rhetorically as he knew full well the Doctor couldn't answer him. "Not hearing you babbling away about something or other is REALLY creeping me out." The Doctor gave him a look that told him how much worse it was for him. "Yea, sorry, I guess it's no fun for you either! Don't worry I'll work something out, eventually," he added quietly.

For the next few minutes the only sounds that filled the room were the grunts and groans from Jack as he tried to get himself free. He tugged hard against the chains that held him until his muscles were sore and his wrists were bleeding and all to no avail, the chains remained as firmly attached as before.

"Boy…could we use your sonic right now," he said to lighten the darkness that threatened the two of them. Right now he knew that there was no way they could escape but he also had to believe that an opportunity would come before it was too late for them or for Martha and he fell back into a contemplative silence.

To Jack the wait seemed interminable but the Doctor knew that it had been exactly one hour, twenty seven minutes and fifty three seconds as the door hissed virtually silently open and the Master reappeared. They both stood straighter in their chains determined not to show any signs of fatigue, fear or defeat. Jack's jaw was set in a hard line of determination, the harsh reality of their situation and months at the hands of the Master and his thugs still not enough to intimidate him. The Doctor's eyes still held the traces of the hope he felt that he could save the Master from the endless torment of the drums before it was too late.

The Master went first to Jack. "Feeling better?" he asked as he idly ran his fingers along his captive's outstretched arm wondering exactly which emotion made Jack shudder at the touch.

"Great, thanks for asking," Jack didn't bother to hide the heavy sarcasm in his voice. "Although I don't think much of the accommodation and chains. Well they are so LAST century."

The Master lowered his voice to a whisper. "That's right Captain, laugh it up because long before I've finished with you you'll be begging me to stop."

"I don't think so," the sarcasm was gone in an instant replaced by a certainty that made even the Master chill at its intensity and he quickly turned his attention to the Doctor.

"Doctor," he rolled the word out slowly savoring each syllable. "I hope you don't think I have been neglecting you?" His only answer was a narrowing of the Doctor's eyes and the faintest trace of him at the edges of his mind. "Oh…no….no you don't." He stepped back, took a cleansing breath and threw up a mental wall that forced the last traces of the Doctor from his thoughts. "That wasn't very nice Doctor, trying to get inside my head, no, not very nice at all."

As he pulled the laser screwdriver from his belt, the Doctor barely kept the flicker of fear from his face, he knew that whatever the Master had in mind, ageing him or just torturing him, it was going to hurt _a lot_. He didn't fear the pain so much; he feared the specter of his failure to be ready when Martha came back and what that would cost this world and many others.

The Master pulled the tie free from around the Doctor's mouth, leaving it hanging limp and damp around his neck. "Do you want to say sorry?" he asked tapping the screwdriver lightly against the Doctor's chest in a sort of pseudo warning of what was to come.

Pausing for a moment to ease the ache in his jaw the Doctor gave the Master a wry smile. "Will it do me any good if I do?"

"It might," he replied putting his lips close to the Doctor's ear and adding, in a voice so low that only they could hear it. "But only if you use my name."

The Doctor remembered only too vividly what the use of the Master's name had been the precursor to the last time the two of them had been alone. He doubted the presence of Jack would prevent a reoccurrence of his vicious rape. The pain of the laser screwdriver was preferable to the pain of violation and the humiliation that accompanied it.

"You can stop this now, let me help you," the Doctor's attempt to appeal to any remaining shred of the Master's conscience was cut short as his whole body was enveloped in the white hot agony of the Master's laser screwdriver's special setting.

"You know Doctor," the Master added conversationally as he watched his captive writhe with the pain and tried to block out the curses of Jack Harkness. "You are getting SO repetitive in your old age. I've told you for the LAST time….I don't….want….your…help." With each word he cranked the setting just a little higher until the Doctor couldn't help himself any longer.

"Alright….alright….," he ground out. "I'm sorry." He could taste blood in his mouth and feel the almost unendurable fire in his veins as his cells burnt inside him.

"What's that Doctor? I didn't quite catch that," the Master taunted waiting for the Doctor to use his name, waiting for the thrill that the sound of that one word would send coursing through him.

"Stop it!" Jack yelled straining, as futilely as the Doctor had done during his torture, against his immovable bonds. "You heard him say he's sorry now stop it."

Without a seconds pause the Master whirled around, the full intensity of his laser screwdriver now focused on the helpless Captain. The setting had been designed for Time Lords not humans, even immortal ones, and Jack was dead before he could take another breath.

The Doctor fought back the scream of protest that welled up inside him, it wouldn't help Jack and it would probably only further irk the Master into more unpredictable and doubtless painful actions. Jack's intervention had called at least a temporary halt to his own torture and he took full advantage of the brief respite whilst the Master composed himself once more.

"You didn't have to kill him," he said as soon as he could trust his voice not to betray his anger or his slowly fading pain.

The Master just quirked his head and allowed a flicker of a smile to cross his features.

"What and spoil the enjoyment of watching you suffer when I do?"

"If that's all you want then why don't you let him go? You don't need him here."

The Master had moved so close to the Doctor that their bodies were all but touching and he could feel the cool silk of the Master's suit against his flesh as he moved around him and his warm breath as he spoke fluttered against his body, raising his flesh in its wake.

"No but YOU do Doctor, you need him here to see what you will do, what you will do for me to save your precious Earth."

The Master stopped behind the Doctor admiring how the muscles of his arms and back twitched now and again under his skin with the effort of their by now long held position. He DID like this current regeneration. It was 'pretty' in a way it hadn't been for such a long time and he liked the feeling that he could mould or even break the slim form to his whim with just the force of his mind and a few carefully chosen words. After all, nobody knew the Doctor as well as he did.

He fought back the urge to take the Doctor there and then, satisfying himself, for now, with running a fingernail down the ridges of his spine, stopping just above the curve of the Doctor's ass and watching him fight the shudder that followed in the wake of his touch.

"I think we'll wait for the good Captain to rejoin us before we carry on, what do you think Doctor?"

"Let him go and I'll do whatever it is you want."

For a long moment the Master seemed to consider the Doctor's offer and he was briefly hopeful that maybe he had succeeded in getting through to his enemy. But with one breath and a few words the Doctor's hopes were once more dashed.

"Oh, you'll do that anyway," he told him pressing his body close enough so that the Doctor could feel the hard length inside his suit and biting gently on the ridge of his neck. "You are mine Doctor, you always were…right from that first day at the Academy and deep in here," as he reached one arm around the Doctor, they both felt the fizz of his Artron energy as he held his hand over the Doctor's hearts. "You know that too."

"I don't know you now," the Doctor replied slightly breathless from the surge of energy he had felt from the Master. He had never thought he would feel that energy again and the memories it stirred, of Gallifrey, the Time Lords, his family, had shaken him.

"Then maybe I should introduce myself," the Master's voice had taken on a cold, hard edge. "I am the last of what the Time Lords should have been…leaders…rulers …Gods even…of the Universe. We had the power to see all of time and space, to shape it and change it and yet we stood back and did nothing."

"Is that what the drums tell you, that it's right to change history? That it's right to kill and maim to get what you want? That power is the ultimate goal? Because if they do then they are wrong, so very, very wrong."

"They have always told me that Doctor, all you need to do is open your mind and hear them, hear their message. Alone I am powerful but together, together we could be invincible, the last of the Time Lords, striding out side by side into a Universe that is ours for the taking. What do you say Doctor….just picture it….open your mind and see what could be yours."

Without breaking his contact with the Doctor the Master moved around him until the two of them once more faced each other. As the Master raised his hand from the Doctor's chest to his temple the Doctor could feel nothing but a time that had long since passed and hear nothing but the rising crescendo of the drums.

_They were standing at the top of a cliff, a wasted planet that could have been Earth and yet wasn't spread out before them. Far below them people bowed at their feet, crying and begging for mercy and forgiveness. _

_The Master reached out and took the Doctor's hand in his. 'Submit to me Doctor.'_

'_Never!' _

'_Then I will take what is mine.'_

_He raised their hands and the plane below them was enveloped in fire._

The mental connection was broken as suddenly as it had been formed, leaving the Doctor with only the insistent drumming that now occupied a place at the back of his mind. The drumming rose and fell with each breath that he took, threatening to send him into a devastating spiral of despair.

"What have you done to me?" he asked in a thin voice.

"I have shown you what it is like to be me," he told him as he swept in and captured the still shaken Doctor's lips in a brutal, dominating kiss.

To the Doctor the longer the kiss went on the more the room seemed to change in front of his eyes – swirling around them, forming itself into visions that he knew couldn't be true. Gallifrey, the Academy, the citadel. Everything that had been and was no more. The Doctor and the Master throughout all of time and space. Equal and yet opposite. Friends and then deadly enemies. He could FEEL everything in every cell as the Master opened his mind to the darkness of the drums.

When the kiss was finally broken the Doctor was barely conscious, his breath came in short panting gasps, his body was shaking so much that he was only held upright by the chains that he no longer felt cutting into his skin, his hearts were pounding in his chest. The drums taunted him, calling him, endlessly calling him. Filled with the promise of power, ALL the power he could want, enough to bring Gallifrey back. Enough even to make up for all his actions in the Time War.

With an effort he forced the temptation away. He was the last of the Time Lords, the last of the TRUE Time Lords. He couldn't change what he had done no matter how much he wanted to.

"I will never be like you," all that he felt was betrayed in his voice.

The Master's breath was so close to his skin, so full of their entwined energies, as it sparked against his face. "You are already more like me than you think Doctor," he traced the Doctor's jaw line with a languid stroke of his hand. "How did it feel.." he asked, tangling his other hand in the Doctor's hair, tipping his head back, exposing his throat, "…to see the two greatest civilizations in the Universe burning, dying.." he bent in and licked a long stripe along the pulsing vein in the Doctor's neck, "…at your hand?" As his tongue retraced its path the Master had to bite back the moan of pleasure that rose in his own throat as he heard the Doctor's plaintive plea.

"Stop…please..."

"Even I never rose to those heights Doctor," a sharp bite on the Doctor's ear lobe, his voice heavy with his rising lust. "Did you feel like a God, Doctor? All those lives….what was it like?"

"Don't….I …can't…," the Doctor could feel the darkness closing at the edges of his mind. The drums, the Master and the enforced memories of what he had done in the Time War crashed against his consciousness until he couldn't fight it any longer and with less resistance than he would have hoped he gave into the drums and allowed them to take him to the darkness.

_When we were young boys we would run through fields of red grass that swayed in an unseen breeze under a sky that was burnished gold by the twin suns that hung in the cloudless sky until we could run no longer. Then we would lie in the grass and watch the suns setting whilst we dreamt of where our lives would take us._

_When we were men, changed beyond all recognition from those care free days on Gallifrey, no longer friends, but sad, reluctant enemies, we were destined to fight time and again throughout time and space. We both believed that we were right and now at the end of time it seems that neither of us was._

_Mr. Magister….Sir Gilles Estram…A man with eyes like a snake's…..that rubbish beard…I always knew it was him…I could always feel it was him._

'_We play the game again Time Lord. Again and again and again.'_

_Laughter that follows me everywhere I go. Faces that are blurred, one minute human and the next a hideous decaying creature hiding, fearful for what remains of its life._

_A kindly old man with the eyes of a child who didn't know who he really was…_

"_I'm asking you, really, properly, just stop, just think."_

_A new millennium, a new face and yet underneath he is just the same, we are just the same, as timeless as the ever turning Universe._

'_One last hope,' I told him, and yet it wasn't to be._

_A whirl of fire and I'm old and helpless…trapped in a gilded cage, taunted, tortured, forced to watch as the world is turned to ashes because of my defiance._

_He laughs as I scream when he makes me young again. He laughs when I protest at the hands against my naked body, the hot breath against my cool skin, the feel of the TARDIS pressing against me. He laughs when I strain against the chains that hold me._

_He laughs when I beg him to stop, pressing his lips against mine. He holds his body against mine, hard and hot. Then he is on me and in me and the pain is like nothing I have ever felt before. Words spill from his lips…promises, threats, demands to use his name. A struggle for breath, the feel of his teeth against my body. Blood and bruises…humiliation and shame…._

_The sound of drums._

The Doctor woke with a suddenness that caught him with the Master's name half formed on his lips and the fear of his memories once more becoming a reality etched on his face.

"Whoa …steady there Doctor…," Jack, once more recovered had had to endure watching the Doctor twitch and tremble through his unconscious battle with his nightmares and was glad to have him awake again. "Take it easy."

The Doctor's eyes slowly focused on the place that the voice came from as he pushed back the last dark vestiges of what the Master had planted in his mind - the good and the bad.

"Jack…?" he asked, still struggling to separate his nightmare from his reality.

"Right here and not going anywhere anytime soon. Are you OK? It looked like you had a bit of a nightmare there."

"Yea…you could say that," the Doctor's smile didn't reach his eyes.

"Was it - him – in your nightmare?"

The Doctor gave him a quizzical look.

"Hey I'm a 51st century guy; I've seen the way he looks at you…."

"It's not like that," the Doctor insisted without conviction.

"Yea…right," Jack retorted. "Look if you don't want to tell me what's going on between you two then that's fine but maybe if you do then I can help, you know, find someway to get us out of here before…." he didn't need to say anything more, they both knew what he meant.

"Thanks Jack but me and…" the Doctor couldn't bring himself to use the Master's name, fearful of the memories that it would evoke. "We have a history that stretches backwards and forwards through time. We are the same."

"You are NOT the same as that sicko!" Jack cut in, amazed that the Doctor could think such a thing.

"And yet I am. We are Time Lords, the last of our race and deep down inside that makes us the same. Don't you see Jack? That's why I have to help him, because I am the only one who can."

Jack shook his head in disbelief that even after all that the Doctor had been forced to endure he still felt that it was his responsibility to help a man who, he believed, was as close to pure evil as he had come across in his long life time.

"Whatever you say Doctor," he told him in a tone that implied that he didn't really understand at all. "But how can you help someone who is that crazy?"

"I don't know yet, but you know me I'll think of something I always…usually… do."

"Yeah, well just don't take too long, I'm getting really tired of dying."

High above them, on the control deck of the Valiant, the Master pressed his head against the full length glass windows that looked out onto the ravaged planet. The drums in his head were stronger now than they had been for a long time, they pulled at his mind even when he tried to sleep, turning his thoughts to strange times and places, dragging up memories he had thought long buried.

Absently he drew in the condensation his breath formed on the window, circles within circles, swirling patterns that only two men alive would be able to read. Ancient Gallifreyian text proclaiming the names of the last two Time Lords, names they no longer chose to use because they reminded them both of what had been.

_If he tried really, really hard he could just remember a time without the drums, a time when he had wealth and power and a friend who swore to be that forever._

_Then the days of innocence and friendship were taken from him on a darkened night that he could still remember as clearly as if it had just happened._

_He could see the whole of time and space. And he wanted it all, EVERYTHING that it had to offer, the good and the evil. He knew from that very moment that he was destined for something so much bigger than Gallifrey. _

_The drums told him that._

_He no longer cared for anything or anyone, he was his own man driven by an endless beat that only he could hear. He turned his back on the only friend he had ever had and never looked back._

_Time and time again their paths had crossed and they had argued and fought and even once or twice stood together against an evil that was bigger then even his own desires. But they could never be as they were, the drums made sure of that, driving him slowly to a madness from which he couldn't escape._

_And now the drums were so very, very strong and this time he knew, with a certainty and a clarity that he hadn't had for years that there was only one course of action left to him. Only one thing he could do to stop the drumming in his head and give him back the peace that was now no more than a fast fading memory._

" Oh, Doctor," he whispered as he wiped the glass clear before burying the last vestiges of who he had once been deep within him and turned on his heel.

The door slid open and the Master strode purposefully into the room. The Doctor and Jack didn't turn to look at him as he crossed the metal floor, his footsteps filling the empty room with an angry echo. The Doctor could feel the barely suppressed anger emanating from the Master and had just enough time to steal a wary glance at Jack before the Master was upon them.

The Master turned to Jack and the time agent felt his blood run cold at the empty, hard, expressionless eyes that seemed to bore into his soul.

"Not one word," the Master warned him. There was no accompanying threat, there didn't need to be.

He spun to face the Doctor and lashed out with a vicious backhand sending the Doctor's head violently to one side. The Doctor made no sound as he straightened up, a small trickle of blood spilling from his lip. The Master swept in and gripped the Doctor by the jaw, forcing him to stillness. He brushed the blood away with his thumb before savoring the taste for himself.

The Doctor's blood tasted like Gallifrey and it intoxicated the Master, stilled the drums for just a few precious seconds. A faint smile flickered across his features, to have the Doctor, to own him and possess him would surely silence the drums.

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, even though he knew that nothing he could say would stop the Master now. He had seen the madness in his eyes before but never as clearly as he did now and for once he was truly scared of what he might be capable of. Before he could form any words the Master was kissing him and he could taste the last vestiges of his own blood on his lips. He didn't return the kiss.

The Master's hands were now all over his body, alternating between feather light touches that made the Doctor tremble despite all his attempts not to, and hard bruising grasps that would have made him groan with pain if he hadn't had the Master still kissing him with a violent possessiveness.

Jack watched on helplessly, desperate to do something…anything. He had tried to shout out but at the last minute a warning glare from the Doctor had silenced him. He hated to be so impotent and vowed to himself that when this was all over he would think of the most inventive way he could to kill the Master and then take the most exquisite pleasure in carrying it out.

Finally the Master broke the kiss, his breath was hardly more than a lust-fuelled pant and his body shook with barely suppressed passion. Jack was certain that he knew what was going to happen to the Doctor and, although he wasn't averse to a little voyeurism, this was one time he REALLY wished that he was somewhere else. He had seen enough madmen in his time to know that his presence would only make the Master more determined to hurt the Doctor, more determined to show him just how powerful he thought he was. Jack also knew that anything he did or said during the horror he was sure was about to unfold would bring nothing but more pain and humiliation for the Doctor. He wanted to be able to step in and take his place, to save him from the deprivations of a man he had once called his friend and was now no more than a crazed madman intent on world...universal…domination. He closed his eyes and his mind to what was going on in front of him and tried to project his love for the Doctor towards him. It wasn't much, it wouldn't be enough but it was all he could do.

The Doctor could see the full depth of the Master's madness in his eyes, in the way he held his body, in the strengthening sound of drums that he could hear in the back of his own mind. He was already weak from the hours of captivity and the energy he had expended trying to tie himself into the Archangel network and he didn't know if this time he would be able to continue to fight the advances, both mental and physical that the Master was undoubtedly about to unleash on him. He would fight with everything he had, for the sake of Jack and Martha and all those who unbeknownst to them owed him so much and if that wasn't enough then at least he would know with his last breath that he had tried.

The Master tore at his smart suit, throwing his jacket and shirt to the floor without a care. His body glistened with a faint sheen of sweat under the harsh lights of the Valiant and, with hardly a pause for breath, he returned his attentions to the Doctor. The sadness that played across the Doctor's face made his blood boil, he didn't want sadness or pity, he wanted power, obedience, he wanted the Doctor on his knees. He wanted the world to see its would-be savior reduced to begging for his life.

"Can you hear them Doctor, the drums? Can you?"

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I can't hear anything," it wasn't strictly the truth but the Doctor didn't want to give the Master any inclination that he was slowly losing the battle to keep the drums from taking him over and driving him as surely to madness as they had done to the Master.

"Listen...listen to your Master," he told him pressing his fingers to The Doctor's face and touching their foreheads together. The sudden powerful thrust of the drums took them both by surprise, amplified as it was by the presence of two Time Lord minds. It promised everything the Master had ever hoped for and threatened all the things the Doctor had dreaded. Hope and fear, destruction and rebirth, the good and the evil that was held in the swirling vortex that powered the Untempered Schism ran through the last of the Time Lords. It held the promise of an unimaginable power, a power that had caused one to rush to embrace it and the other to turn and run from it.

The Doctor could feel the noise as if it were a living breathing entity. He felt it not only in his mind but throughout his body, pulsing, drumming in time with his double heartbeats and he could easily see how it had driven the Master to the madness that now encompassed him. He couldn't let that happen to him, the consequences were too great and yet the longer the drums raged inside him the less he felt capable or even willing to fight them. Only seconds had passed since the Master had merged their minds and yet it seemed like eons and for every second that passed the Doctor's resolve seeped away. With an effort that he didn't think he still possessed he forced his eyes open, stared past the rapt face of the Master and saw Jack.

At that same moment a tiny spark inside Jack's mind told him to open his eyes. He saw the Doctor as he had never seen him before, encompassed in an embrace that was drawing from him the very essence of what made him who he was. Jack could see the fear in the brown eyes and he never wanted to see that look again. If the Doctor was giving up then there was no hope for any of them and Jack never wanted to face that possibility. An endless life in a universe devoid of hope was a death sentence a million times over. He had to do something, say something, but what? What could he do to bring the Doctor back, to make him believe that there was still something worth fighting for? All he could do was use his limited psychic ability to try and tell the Doctor that he loved him, always had and always would. The rest was up to the Doctor.

There was just the slightest interruption in the seemingly relentless rise of the drums in the Doctor's head, a tiny break in the rhythm that whispered to the Doctor. It told him that love and hope were still alive and he should fight for them. He saw the emotion written large across Jack's face and knew that this was his last chance, if he didn't break free from the invasiveness of the Master now then he would truly be lost. He couldn't stop the Master from abusing his body but he could, he would stop the drums in his own head, and if he could save himself then maybe there was still a chance that he could save the Master.

Jack saw the spark of life return to the Doctor's eyes and let out a breath that he hadn't even realized he was holding. His face split into a broad smile that yet further lifted the Doctor's resolve to fight. With a sudden forceful twisting of his head the Doctor managed to break enough of the physical contact that the Master had on him to also break the psychic link between them and the pounding of the drums started to fade.

The Master was taken by surprise at the audacity of the Doctor. He had felt the drums start to take a hold of his oldest friend and had thought that soon they would be one, the last two Time Lords driven by a single overwhelming destiny, to rule, without compromise or mercy. It was his way and if the Doctor didn't want any part of it then that was fine. He would take what he wanted, turn the Doctor back to an ancient helpless being with a lifespan measured in years not centuries and rule without him.

"I can't be like you. Ever," the Doctor told him faintly. "If you want to kill me then do it now but I won't help you."

"I don't want you dead Doctor," the Master's voice was bland and devoid of any emotion. "I just want you, all of you and I will HAVE that."

"Then do it."

The Master turned to Jack. "You heard him as I clearly as I did and by now you should have realized that I am a man of my word. Why don't you watch whilst I show you just what your precious Doctor will do for me. What he will do to stop me from destroying everything that he holds dear."

Throwing his arms wide, all semblance of sanity now lost to the drums that had shaped him since childhood the Master proclaimed. "It's SHOWTIME."

He turned to the Doctor, seemingly oblivious but in reality all too aware of the presence of Jack and trailed a long languorous stroke down his arm. The Doctor trembled under the touch. As he reached the Doctor's swollen wrists, marked red from the cuffs that held him he ran a long finger gently over the narrow bloodstained metal and the cuff undid.

"Isomorphic control," he told the Doctor as he pulled his hand to his lips and placed a gentle kiss against the damaged skin. Never letting go of the hand he held he released the Doctor's other hand and briefly held them against his chest so that the Doctor could feel the powerful double heartbeat through his own skin. The pure strength of purpose that emanated from the Master held the Doctor still and kept Jack from speaking. The Master took both of the Doctor's hands in one of his and with the other he swiftly reached up, freed the tie that still hung around the Doctor's neck and used it to bind his hands together in front of him.

"Isn't that better?"

The Doctor didn't reply.

"I asked you a question. Isn't that better?" even though the Doctor's hands were bound the Master hadn't let them go. "You should thank me…before I change my mind and…," he cast a glance from side to side to where the chains and cuffs hung against the cold steel walls.

"Thank you." The Doctor didn't sound sincere.

"Thank you …what?"

The Doctor knew what the Master wanted. "Master," he added. Although he doubted that Jack had seen anything he could feel the change that ran through the Master at that moment, he could feel his skin prickle, the rise in his body temperature and the increase in his heart rates.

"Undress me," he released the Doctor's hands then leant in so that his words didn't carry. "Try anything and I will make SO many people pay."

The Doctor showed no emotion as he undid the Master's trousers and lowered them to the floor.

"All of it, all the way."

The Doctor had no choice but to lower himself to his knees and complete his task.

"Now this I like," the Master held the Doctor from rising with a firm hand on his shoulder. "The Doctor on his knees to me…ME!"

The Master tangled one hand through the Doctor's already messy hair pulling his face into his groin.

The Doctor was assailed by a myriad of emotions and senses. There was pain from the fingers in his hair, the musty smell of the Master's obvious arousal and underpinning them all, the most dangerous, most disturbing emotion of all, the warmth and security of the Time Lords.

The Master ground himself against the Doctor's face. Groin to head, a wordless dance of power versus duty.

"Take me," the voice was at its most commanding, humans would have fallen to its power and even Jack with his advanced time agency training felt a need to do what the voice told him.

Now both the Master's hands were in the Doctor's hair and holding him still. A gentle and yet insistent rutting against his face, the feel of coarse pubic hair against his skin driving home the Master's instruction. This was no place for stubborn pride, embarrassment or shame, the fate of the world and all those who still survived on its blasted, wasted surface was at stake.

The Doctor opened his lips and took the Master's engorged length into his mouth.

At the feel of the Doctor's warm mouth on his cock the Master couldn't hold back a low moan of pleasure. This was all too perfect…the freak helplessly watching as he fucked the Doctor, the world below bent to his Will and soon to be the launching pad for his domination of the whole Universe. As soon as the drums stilled he would be complete.

He was the MASTER.

He growled low in the back of his throat as he set up a harsh punishing rhythm forcing the Doctor to take him deeper and harder with each drive of his hips. He set the pace, dictated the movements, thrusting, forcing, holding the Doctor where he wanted him, feeling his orgasm building, building…

The Doctor could hardly breathe; his head was forced against the Master's groin, held there with harsh twisting fingers in his hair. The smell and the feel of the Master against his face was choking him and he could do nothing but allow the Master to rape his mouth, time and time again and wish for his ordeal to be over.

Jack watched with a repulsed fascination as the Master forced himself on the Doctor. He wanted to turn away but something, maybe the Master himself, forced him to keep watching in agonized silence.

The Master was mumbling now, a low litany of promises and threats that only the Doctor and he could hear. The words were a jumble of English and Gallifreyan but they all told the same story. The Master would fuck the Doctor time and again until the drums stopped and if they never stopped, then the Doctor's torment would never stop.

The Doctor could sense the change in the Master's body as he forced himself for a final time deep into his throat. Feebly he tried to push the Master away before he was forced to swallow his impending orgasm, but all his efforts earned him was being held impossibly closer and tighter as finally, with just the slightest cry of triumph, the Master came long and hard. The Doctor was forced to swallow the Master's pulsing semen, the hot sticky fluid tasted rancid and he fought hard against his own gag reflex. Just as it seemed to the Doctor that he would have to use his respiratory bypass system to stay conscious the Master pulled free allowing the last few splashes of his semen to streak the Doctor's face in a humiliating act of domination.

The Doctor, finally free of the clawing restraint of the Master, fell forward onto his bound hands, his head drooping and his shoulders heaving as he retched and coughed against the vile taste in his throat. Sweat slicked his whole body; his face felt sore where the coarseness of the Master's pubic hair had rubbed time and again against his skin. A foul taste filled his stomach and the sound of his own double heartbeat was loud in his ears.

Seeing the Doctor so humiliated, so degraded, was more than Jack could bear. He had been silent throughout the Master's brutal rape despite the fact that inside he was seething, boiling with hatred and a need to make the Master pay for what he was doing to the Doctor, what he had done to the Earth, what he had done to him.

"You sick bastard," he didn't raise his voice but the underlying menace was clear.

The Master, forcefully slowing his own breathing until it was once more normal, turned to look at him. A slow, evil smile cracked his face as he glanced back at the still hunched, shaking figure of the Doctor.

"Why thank you, I am rather aren't I," it wasn't a question. "But," he walked slowly towards Jack and lowered his voice as if he was about to impart a secret. "Just between the two of us I think the Doctor enjoyed that more than he's letting on, don't you?"

Jack strained against his chains eager to show the Master just what he thought of his 'observation'. Fleetingly he could picture his hands around the Master's throat as he slowly squeezed his last breath from him. He growled low as he pulled ineffectively at his bonds, his helplessness a crushing inadequacy. He wanted to be able to run to the Doctor, take him in his arms and reassure him that everything was going to be alright. To tell him that no matter what happened, no matter WHAT was done to him, he would still love him…always.

"No matter what you do to him, he will ALWAYS be a better man than you could ever hope to be," Jack told him.

Casting another casual, almost dismissive glance at the Doctor, the Master shook his head sadly. "Why would I ever want to be like …that, when I can be like…ME?"

The Master was now so close to Jack that he could feel the heat from his body, his 51St Century senses could smell the sweetness of his recent orgasm and the smell made him want to heave. He could sense the feelings of triumph and satisfaction that flooded through the Master at what he had done and he wanted nothing more than to be able to take the Doctor's place, to suffer and to die at the hands of the Master if it would save the Doctor because, if there was one thing he knew for certain as the Master stroked a long languid finger down his face, it was that the Doctor's ordeal was far, far from over.

He didn't allow the touch of the Master, which was now more insistent, to distract him. He saw the Doctor had now pulled himself from his slumped position and was now sitting back on his knees, his face still reddened and streaked with cum, his eyes blank, hollow, so lacking in the life that he always associated with the Doctor.

"I'm going to fucking kill you," he told the Master. They both knew his reasons why and in the one look that passed between them at that moment they both knew what would happen next.

The Master tipped his head slightly to one side, his lips quirking into what could hardly be described as a smile. With a last lingering sweep of his hand down Jack's chest he turned away.

The Master wasn't greatly surprised at Jack's reaction, he knew that his callous treatment of the Doctor would be sufficient to rile the ex-Time Agent and that played into his hands. Although he had hoped to test the legendary sexual prowess of Captain Jack Harkness for himself, this was not going to be the time and the place…they were still to come…now he wanted to be alone with the Doctor. To TRUELY have him, hold him, corrupt him to the ways of the drums needed no distractions and right now Jack Harkness was nothing more than a distraction.

Reaching for his jacket he pulled his laser screwdriver from the pocket, making sure that both the other occupants of the room were in no doubt as to his intentions. The screwdriver hummed in his hand as he straightened up. It seemed to be the only sound in the room.

Hearing the sound seemed to rouse the Doctor from his torpor, but when he spoke his voice was broken and small.

"Master," his use of the name was a deliberate, desperate attempt to appeal to the Time Lord. "Don't please…I'm asking you…"

"ASKING me?"

"Begging you…"

"Don't Doctor," Jack told him. "Don't …not for me, I'm not worth it."

The Master rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. "Sentimental…clap…trap," each word was punctuated with a blast from the screwdriver at the helpless form of Jack. He didn't make a sound but it was clear from the way his body jerked and his face flinched that each blast hurt more than the one before. "Sentiment breeds weakness and if there is one thing that I can't abide it is weakness." Before he could hear any protests, he blasted Jack again. "Weakness, sentiment, if you let them get a hold of you then you are dead." The next blast tore an agonized scream from Jack as he felt the fire of the laser. "Aren't you…freak?" There was no time for anybody to protest, plead or even scream before Jack hung once again dead in his chains.

The Doctor stared horrified at the scene that unfolded before him. Jack had seen him at his most humiliated, his most degraded and he had been denied the chance to explain why…why he had let the Master use him like he did. How he had done it to save millions from death, even if it was only for a few hours. Now he feared Jack would forever see him as the coward he felt himself to be.

The Master unlocked the isomorphic control that held Jack's chains in place and his lifeless body fell soundly against the cold floor of the Valiant. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, the room was filled with guards. They seemed to pay the Doctor no mind as they swarmed in and with no finesse and no care hauled Jack's body between them and dragged it from the room. The fact that they would later torment the Jones family and the revived Jack with what they had seen in that room would remain an unknown to the Doctor for many months to come.

Hours later when Jack spluttered back to life it was to the feeling that he had let the Doctor down. He'd failed to find a way for them to escape, failed to stop the Master from hurting them both, failed to stop him from unleashing his sadistic nature on the Doctor. He'd failed them both and now there was no way he could help, no way he could tell the Doctor that he was sorry and that he'd ALWAYS stand beside him, no matter what the cost.

As suddenly as they had come the guards were gone and the Master and the Doctor were, for the first time, alone in the depths of the Valiant. There was no one to hear them, no one to see them, no one to save them but each other. The two last Time Lords, the madman and his would be savior.

The Master was strutting, gloating, glowing with his own self importance, literally the master of all he surveyed. The Doctor was almost broken, beaten and humiliated into a state where his own self-esteem was at its lowest ebb. He had allowed the Master to rule him, use him and abuse him. He had listened to the lure of the drums and allowed himself to be drawn by their subtle promise of a chance to make amends for his actions in the Time War. For the possibility, no matter how remote, of the power to bring back the Time Lords, all of them, his family and friends, the good and the bad. He should have stood true to his actions, true to the realization that he hadn't had a choice in the Time War, true to the fact that there was more at stake than just his own pride. Yet again a planet, in fact a whole Universe hung on his actions but this time his actions were to be dictated by a man he had once thought to be his equal, a man he had once called Koschei, his friend.

"Well that was fun, wasn't it?" the Master's comment was made in a light-hearted manner as he tossed his laser screwdriver from hand to hand. The Doctor shuddered slightly, both at the tone of his voice and at the prospect of the pain the screwdriver could bring to him should the Master chose to turn it on him.

"Why?" the Doctor's question covered a multitude of options…his own rape, the 'murder' of Jack, the Master's seemingly never-ending quest for domination.

"So now then… to business…," the Master chose to ignore the Doctor's question. He didn't need to explain himself to anyone, and especially not to the man who now knelt at his feet. "You and I, we can't seem to keep away from each other now can we?"

"And whose fault is that?"

"Don't be petulant, it won't help you."

"I don't know what you have got planned for me," the Doctor lied, he had a VERY good idea of what the Master had planned for him and his body and he was sure that he wasn't going to enjoy any of it, at all. "But whatever it is, you don't need to do it. I can help you, I know I can. I've heard the drums in your head." He didn't feel inclined to tell the Master that those same drums now beat a slow and steady beat in his own mind and it was struggle every minute to hold them at bay. He tried to rise to his feet but the Master was on him in a flash and with a vicious shove had him once more sprawled at the feet of his nemesis.

"I don't remember telling you that you could get up," the Master placed a foot on the Doctor's chest holding him in place. "In fact I quite like you where you are, where you should be. You and your precious Earth at my feet…perfect."

The Master fancied that he could feel the quickening, nervous beats of the Doctor's hearts through his foot. Racing with a fear of what was still to come and the thought quickened his own heartbeats making his blood rush, charging him with a sexual energy that he knew he couldn't ignore. Swiftly he knelt beside the Doctor holding him down now with a hand held directly between his hearts, his other hand trailing swirling patterns down the Doctor's helpless body. Every touch of skin on skin tingled like raw electricity, enticing and just a little dangerous.

The Doctor knew that he could easily push the Master's hand away and be free of his invasive touch but what good would that do him? He would still be trapped with a man who wanted nothing more than to posses his body so, in what he hoped would be a way to save himself some of the horrors that the Master would inflict on him, he pushed down his pride and allowed the Master free reign over him.

The more the Master stroked and touched his body the more the Doctor tried to retreat into the safety of his own mind only to find that all that waited for him there was the slow steady pulse of the Master's own madness. There seemed to be no escape from either the slow building torment that the Master was inflicting on his body or the enticing promise of the drums. Yet, deep inside his very core the Doctor knew that to defeat the drums he had to let the Master take him, rape and abuse him because those things were only physical and he would, he hoped, recover from them in time. If he fought back the drums would never cease and he would be driven to the same madness as the Master and then not just the Earth but the entire known Universe would be lost to the psychotic delusions of madmen. Madmen with no one left to stop them.

"Up," the Master's voice was deep, husky with his growing lust as he pulled the Doctor to his feet by his still bound hands and pushed him unceremoniously towards the nearest wall. The stanchion which held the chains that had previously secured the Doctor and Jack made an ideal location for the Master to hurriedly bind the Doctor's hands above his head.

The Doctor could feel the weight of the Master's body behind him, the press of skin on skin, the hard hot length of the Master's erection against him. He tried not to tremble when he felt a hand caress his ass, tried not to feel as the fingers of that hand roughly penetrated him to the accompanying moan of the anticipated delights still to come from the Master.

Whispered breath in his ear. "Aren't you going to fight me Doctor?" the Master sounded almost disappointed. "Fight for your precious Earth?"

"It won't stop you," the Doctor's voice was laced with the underlying pain he was feeling from the by now brutal invasion of his ass by the Master's fingers. He could feel them stretching him, twisting inside him in a way that made him want to beg for it to stop.

"No, it won't but I had expected more from you Doctor, more fight…I like it when they fight, when you fight, it…excites me. But not to worry, this excites me too," he punctuated his words by slowly withdrawing his fingers and then, without warning, sheathing his rock hard cock balls deep in the Doctor's ass.

The pain that the Doctor felt was so sudden and so all consuming that he couldn't hold back the cry that it tore from him. His head jerked back with the unexpected viciousness of the Master's penetration and he bit down on his lip as the Master set up a punishing regime of long, hard, deep thrusts into him.

The Master grunted each time he forced himself into the Doctor and moaned each time he pulled himself almost free again. It was a declaration of pain and pleasure that filled the whole of the room. This time there was no need for taunting words, his actions spoke for themselves. Every thrusting stroke was drawn out to its full extent, the Master seeming to take pleasure from the pain that he must have been feeling himself. His pace was steady and relentless as he held back from allowing himself the ultimate release in order to make the Doctor suffer more. For the Master a little self-control was worth the additional agonies that it would put the Doctor through.

"Nothing to say Doctor?" he panted into the Doctor's ear as he gripped his sweat dampened hair in one hand pulling his head back to better torment him. "No pleading, no begging…no…nothing?"

For the Doctor it was all he could do not to scream at the Master, to offer him anything he wanted just to make the pain and humiliation stop. Every breath came through gritted teeth as the Master continued to pound into him as if he were nothing. Any last thoughts he might have had about trying to help his one time friend were diminishing with every minute that the Master continued his brutal rape. Suddenly to compound his helpless position he felt an arm snake around his body holding him tightly as a warm hand grabbed his limp cock and began to caresses him.

"Not enjoying this Doctor?" came the gloating tone. As the Master pulled himself almost free of the Doctor's tormented ass he stroked the Doctor's cock, twisting as he did so, drawing him to a hardness that was unwanted by one and relished by the other. As he punished the Doctor with another balls deep thrust, he swept his hand back down the Doctor's by now hard length and roughly rolled his balls in his hand. "You should be. Look at us the last of the Time Lords fucking like common animals…what would the Council think?"

The Doctor didn't have the breath left to say anything, his whole body felt as if it were on fire, burning from the inside out as the Master steadily began to build up the pace of his thrusts. Driving deep and hard to a beat that only he could hear, punishing them both with the pain of every stroke.

The Master's increasing pleasure made him want to increase the pain and he used his free hand to press against the nerve endings just below the Doctor's clavicle. Time Lords had a weakness just there, where their nerves were close to the surface. Enough pressure or an accurate blow could leave them unconscious, but just a little pressure would heap on the pain and when the Doctor cried out for him to stop he knew he had it just right.

"Ask me again," The Master ordered him as he thrust once more deep inside the Doctor and simultaneously dug his fingers against the Doctor's nerve bundle.

"Stop. Please."

"Not good enough," another thrust, another twist of the Master's hand on the Doctor's erection. "Again…this time…beg me...use my name."

"Please Master, please stop," the distress in the Doctor's voice, his pitiful pleading tone, was almost enough to cause the Master to come to orgasm there and then. He held himself still for a long moment until he was back in full control.

"No," he told him as with a final triple assault on the Doctor's body he heard the anguished howl and felt the tension throughout the Doctor that signified his complete domination. The sensations that filled him were like nothing he had felt in centuries, it was as if at the moment of his own orgasm he could once again feel the unholy power of the Untempered Schism filling his soul. He was unstoppable, he could do anything, be anyone and his actions at this very moment proved that. He could take the only man who would dare to stand in his way and reduce him to nothing more than a begging, whimpering wreck, to be fucked and abused at whim.

For the Master there was nothing more. This was as good as it got and he savored it. Savored every second of his orgasm as he filled the Doctor with a million tiny reminders of just how far he had fallen since they were friends.

If the Doctor had thought that his humiliation had been complete when he had allowed himself to get an erection at the hand of the Master it was as nothing when with one final brutal grasping, pumping action his own orgasm was forced from him. The sound that spilled from his lips was partly the cry of an unwanted release and partly the agonized realization that nothing had changed.

His body shook with every cruel word that the Master tortured him with as he rung his orgasm from him with uncaring strokes. Words like, loser and useless, words like hopeless and pathetic. Words like….'mine'.

As the Doctor's orgasm spilled from him, splashing violently over the Master's hand and onto the floor, the Master knew that there was nothing more that he needed to do or say. He had shown the Doctor that he could and would take him, abuse him and humiliate him whenever he felt like it and with no regard for anything other than his own perverse pleasures. The drums had been with him all his life and if he couldn't stop them then he would heed them. The Doctor was now nothing more than an amusing distraction from the real work of subjugating the Earth. A distraction that he would take up more and more frequently as the days rolled on.

Once the Doctor was spent, the Master seemed to loose all interest in him and without another word picked up his discarded clothing and left the room as if he suddenly remembered that he had somewhere else to be.

Alone once more the Doctor hung his head and failed to fight back the tears of frustration that filled his eyes. The drums still beat at the back of his head and the Earth was still subject to the whims of a madman. He hadn't tried hard enough, he had failed all those who depended on him and he had, above all, failed himself.

Throughout the following weeks and months the Doctor would look back on what had happened that day in the depths of the Valiant and wish for their return. The Master's psychotic need to prove his domination would drive him to acts of depravity that would almost, almost, cause the Doctor to loose his faith in everything. Each day his aged body would hear more stories of desolation and destruction until the Doctor wondered just how much more the Earth could withstand. Each night, young again, he would wait with an increasingly fearful trepidation of what the Master would do to him and hope that he could still find the strength and the courage to hold on for another day.

There were 300 more days to go.


End file.
